


Amid the Shadowed Roses

by LilyChenAppreciationSociety



Category: Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: AUs, Black Rose Triad, Black Rose Week, F/M, M/M, Multi, Wild Hunt, fluff and nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6745453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyChenAppreciationSociety/pseuds/LilyChenAppreciationSociety
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Black Rose Triad (Kieran/Mark/Cristina) fics, for the sweetest trio there is. Revels, adult domesticity, and pillow forts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Small Comforts

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/143108820477/black-rose-week-day-one-small-comforts)

Cristina was talking softly into her phone in Spanish.

Judging by her face someone had died.

Mark was aware that this was not the case, Cristina was just talking to her mother. But it was still startling to see her so subdued.

Kieran had given up on watching the disaster unfold and was instead arranging all Mark’s blankets into what looked like an intricate nest on his bed. It was a lot of blankets, Mark had been accumulating them for weeks as he tested his new-old boundaries. It was heady, being able to sleep with as many covers as he wanted without worrying about how he would fold them up to ride the next morning. He missed the feeling of waking up with dew on his face, the night air curling around him until he curled closer to Kieran, but bedding certainly had its charms.

Cristina’s voice rose, angry or pleading, Mark couldn’t tell. He had only puzzled out a few phrases of Spanish. A frown twitched across Kieran’s face, but he didn’t look up from his task.

The stream of indecipherable syllables grew louder like a rising thunderstorm as Cristina continued speaking, then she fell silent so quickly it hurt. She listened for a while, jaw tight and eyes blank, before muttering a farewell and ending the call. Mark had caught an “I love you”, one of the few phrases he had learned to pick out, in the final moments, but that didn’t mean much. Words alone meant little in this world.

“You sounded upset.” Mark said, as Cristina sat down on the edge on the bed, not touching Kieran’s project. “Is something troublesome?”

“Diego is coming back.”

“Oh.”

“My mother asked him, somehow she convinced the Scholomance to agree. She never listens.”

“Is it a malady of the ears?” Kieran asked. It was possible he was just trying to calm Cristina, but Mark suspected it more likely that he would now have to pull him aside and explain that Cristina’s mother was not truly hard of hearing.

Cristina snorted. “Only her own stubbornness.”

“Your Perfect suitor cannot trouble you if I turn Dru on him.” Mark suggested. “Or we could let Emma drop kick him into the ocean this time.” It was the most mild of the suggestions Emma had made in between Cristina and Diego’s argument and Diego finally leaving on ‘Centurion business’.

Mark didn’t actually know what they had argued about, except that it had something to do with Diego’s brother and that Cristina had been aloof and morose for days after, until Kieran had reappeared in Mark’s life and she had gotten, well, involved.

Cristina shook her head. “He will leave me alone if I tell him to, but it could still be dangerous having him here. Hopefully my mother will get the message eventually and call him home.” Cristina’s expression clearly said, ‘Family, what can you do?’

Family. Mark knew it was never not complicated.

“One of my brothers went blind from stubbornness, a few score years ago.” Kieran said helpfully. “In his arrogance he refused to stop bickering with Father and Father put his eyes out until he learned patience.”

“I am not sure that counts.” Cristina said. A few weeks ago she would have looked appalled. Now she merely accepted Kieran’s story as an unfortunate fact, albeit one she was prepared to argue the semantics of.

“I cannot speak lies, Cristina.” Kieran reminded her. “Would you challenge the word of a prince of faerie?”

“I would challenge you.” she replied, some of her worry fading in the face of Kieran’s oddly comforting high handedness.

“Your impudence does not serve you well.” he scolded, his curls fading darker. “Mayhaps I will bar you from this bed.”

Mark poked Kieran’s growing blanket pile. “This is my bed, you must have forgotten. If you want to make a pillow fort you’re going about it the wrong way, Kier.”

“A fort made of pillows would be easy to conquer. This is just blankets. I’m trying to make it warm.” he said, as though his motivations should have been completely obvious to all watchers.

Cristina too turned her attention to the mess. “Are they knotted together?”

Kieran shrugged. “In places.”

“It needs a roof.” Mark decided as he inspected it.

Kieran clearly did not agree, but he waved a hand, giving Mark freedom to create his silly roof it he wanted. Cristina watched as Mark went and fetched some stiffer pillows and a sheet, setting up a careful canopy over the structure. When he was done Kieran went back around, fixing up everything Mark had disrupted.

It was Cristina who asked the most pertinent question.

“How do you get in?”

It took a little more time to accomplish that. It was not a large space, shoved up against Mark’s headboard, the structure of pillows lined with blankets, a rough roof over head. Getting all three of them in was nearly impossible, but they were not born quitters and with a few modifications it was managed.

Knees and elbows poked and protruded, legs overlapped, blankets were twisted in awkward places. Cristina clambered out and fetched a flashlight, then turned off Mark’s light.

It felt like being in a cramped, soft cave, gently illuminated by the fleece dimmed torch. Legs stuck out, arms had nowhere to go, and as they wriggled deeper into the pile Mark suspected they might have reached perfection.

Mark kissed Kieran lightly in thanks and Cristina, neck deep in blankets, blew him a kiss in turn.

“We’re not going to be able to do this when Diego comes.” Cristina said. “At least not without being much more careful. I trust him,” - Kieran scowled- “But he has sworn oaths to the Clave.”

Mark shifted, trying to keep his foot from falling asleep. “We’ll find a way, Tina. One that won’t test Diego too much.”

“No, I suspect you will be pushing his limits quite enough as it is.” Cristina agreed. “I only hope this doesn’t ruin everything.”

Kieran looked uncomfortable, and pressed his face into Cristina’s blanket mound in what Mark thought was a silent declaration of support. You never knew with Kieran.

“I think out of all the things that could ruin us,” Mark said slowly. “Your cousin is not terribly high on the list.”

The LA Institute walked a tightrope, Uncle Arthur, Jules and Emma, the looming threat of the Cold Peace, poor Kit down the hall. What was one more potential disaster?

“We still have a week.” Cristina said, her eyes drifting shut. Kieran looked comfortable and Mark suspected this would be another night when Gwyn showed up to pull him away before dawn.

“Mm.” Mark agreed.

Cristina muttered something else in Spanish and leaned her head back. It was quiet, but Mark had long ago figured out how to recognize “I love you.”


	2. To Have and To Hold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/143159807088/black-rose-week-day-two-shush-cristina)

“Shush.” Cristina implored as Kieran climbed through her window. “You’ll wake the baby.”

The baby in question was almost two and a half and currently stretched out in her mother’s arms. Her dark, fine hair fanned around her face, nearly covering the unmistakeable points of her ears. Mark’s heritage had apparently decided to settle like a mantle around his daughter despite all the usual tendencies to the contrary.

(It was easier to think that it was merely a quirk of heredity, safer to refuse to consider other options.)

Kieran knelt in front of Cristina and peered at the child’s tear streaked face. “What troubled your poor babe?” he whispered.

“The usual.” Cristina replied, smiling tiredly. “Life is hard when you’re young and hate bedtime.”

She was as stubborn as her parents, Mark and Cristina’s daughter. Kieran adored her wholeheartedly, even if he had to be careful around her since she had started to talk. Little tongues knew little tact. He himself had incurred quite a few threats of bodily harm as a child for blurting out things he shouldn’t have.

He wondered what he would be when she was older, a shadow in the night, a memory, a rare and secret visitor. At least for the time being he was Kier, who popped in around bedtime to sneak her sweets and read her stories.

Cristina passed her over and stretched, even as Kieran struggled to adjust long pajama clad toddler limbs into a comfortable arrangement.

“We should go put her in her own room and fetch Mark.” Cristina suggested, once Kieran had a few minutes to admire the child in his arms, to appreciate her even breathing and steadily thumping pulse.

“Where is March?” he asked, feather soft.

Cristina stretched again, arms over her head, fingers laced, her body arching back. “He’s cleaning up the kitchen.” she said with a yawn. “I’ll go help him if you want to put her to bed?”

Kieran very much did want to put the baby to bed, especially now that the loud parts of the bedtime routine were over.

Cristina must have seen his eagerness because she grinned. “Call me if she starts screaming.” she said, before ambling out of the room, her adult body so different and yet so much the same as when they were young.

Kieran rolled his eyes. He knew how to deal with crying babies. He just didn’t like it very much.

“Let’s get you into your cot, little rose.” he whispered to her in the language of his childhood, as he made for the nursery.

It was a small house, ten minutes away from the Los Angeles Institute, close enough that Helen and the younger Blackthorns could visit at their pleasure, but with a measure of privacy. There were two bedrooms, two studies, two bathrooms, it was a house of twos. Kieran was always a little disappointed that there weren’t two kitchens.

Little Milia’s room had once been set aside for guests, at least until she had snuck up on them like the best kind of ambush and it had been hastily converted into a child’s room. Mark’s brother Julian had painted the walls with a hundreds of roses, from which a girl with blond hair peered, or rather glowered, a fitting tribute to the child’s oblique name sake. Mark said Emma was all poor bereft Julian drew these days.

It took only a few minutes to lower Milia to her bed and cover her with a well loved quilt. But Kieran stayed longer, watching the rise and fall of her breathing, inspecting her face.

For all of Kieran’s occasional paranoid suspicions she had a lot of Mark in her, his features, slack with sleep as Kieran had seen them so many times. Scattered in were her mother’s thick eyebrows, the high cheekbones both of them shared and Cristina’s dark, kind eyes made faerie clever.

She was theirs, and so she was his in every way blood.

When he finally closed the nursery door and made his way downstairs he found Mark with his arms wrapped around Cristina, a wash rag clenched in one fist. They were swaying slightly, wrapped together and wrapped in golden lamp light. It didn’t look like the most effective cleaning technique.

Kieran kept back. Married couples needed their space, just as he and Mark sometimes had to sit together and talk about things no one else understood, and he and Cristina met under rose bowers to badly garden on stolen afternoons. Three was well and fine, but sometimes two was better.

This was not one of those times. Mark held out an arm, welcoming Kieran into the circle. His sleeve was rolled up, his wedding rune marked like a brand on his skin. Kieran desperately wanted to trace it with his lips, make it his with kisses and touch until every Clave law blurred and bent, but he sensed it was not the time. Later perhaps.

He leaned against Mark, hip to hip with Cristina, and Mark leaned against the kitchen table. Even Shadowhunters grew more tired as they aged.

“Where’s Emilia?” Mark asked the side of Kieran’s head.

“In her bed.” he replied.

Cristina drew away, like a dancer about to twirl, connected to her partner by pressed fingertips and and a curve of arms. “Asleep, as we should be.” she said. The words were playful but her unsteadiness betrayed her

Mark, who still wasn’t much for cleaning even with a house and a wife and a baby, seemed to agree.

Kieran beat them back to their bedroom. It was domestic, the big bed, the rocking chair, children’s toys on the floor, papers on the bedside table. Cristina was a letter writing dervish.

“I will not,” she would often proclaim, “let my child grow up under the Cold Peace.”

Kieran and Mark felt much the same way. They made good progress, Cristina with her honest strength, Mark with his accusing eyes and bared scars, Kieran by creeping about the courts, saying this and that and sometimes changing minds

He had never thought himself a politician before, but growing up did strange things to people.

Like Mark and Cristina, who at barely thirty already bore signs of their age in ways Kieran never would. Lines around their eyes, Mark’s disappearing faerie speech patterns, the shifted shape of Cristina’s body after Emilia, the thickening lattice of rune scars they both wore, the new way they stumbled into bed at the end of the day, collapsing as if the world weighed too heavily on their shoulders.

He hated seeing it but he hated the idea of not seeing them even more.

Kieran slid into bed once Mark and Cristina had crawled into more comfortable positions and settled himself between them.

In fifty years, if they all lived that long, he would be a child among elders. It sounded bizarre and frightening, the idea of forever being the strange fey lover in a Shadowhunter marriage bed.

Cristina stole another pillow and curled up, and Mark took advantage of the chance to rest his head on Kieran’s shoulder.

“Thank you for putting our Emmy to bed.” he said, yawning. “And sorry we’re so boring. Long patrol night last night.”

Kieran twisted one of Mark’s ringlet curls, a little bronzed by age but still fair, around his finger. “You are never boring.” he said, and did not lie.

Mark looked doubtful but still smiled, eyes focusing and unfocusing but always on Kieran’s face. “Stay the night and we’ll be more entertaining in the morning.”

“Don’t make any promises you’re not prepared to keep.” Cristina grumbled.

Kieran wriggled under the sheets, settling in. “Too late. I will hold you to that, Mark.”

Down the hall the baby started to shriek, incoherent words sprinkled through the wails.

From what Kieran could decipher it was too dark. Sweet, silly babe. She would not make a Hunter, and he was glad of it.

(Though Gwyn had expressed interest in meeting Mark’s child, once she had grown a bit in years. She was a very special child, their Milia, and Gwyn recognized value. And he knew the power of love.)

Cristina covered her head with a pillow and Mark started to roll out of bed. Kieran stopped him.

“I believe I can handle it.”

Mark blinked and nodded. “Just open her door and turn on the hall light and sit with her and she’ll be fine.” he said, before crashing back down, face first.

A little light, she would be fine.

Kieran let out of bed, moving lightly, and went to comfort the troubled infant. He flicked off her parents’ bedroom light on the way out. In the dark Cristina was a lumpy shape and Mark’s hair practically glowed. They were still his, still recognizable, and there was still a place for him between them. Age and Shadowhunter runes and parenthood not been able to steal that.

They were fine.


	3. Revel and Splendour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/143212859484/black-rose-week-day-three-revel-and-splendour)

Cristina wore a dress of flowers, Mark wore cloth of gold. They danced in caverns of mica where diamonds glittered underfoot, innumerable facets cutting revelers’ feet until the floor was stained with blood of many colours, or in the depths of old growth forests lost to time, where magic had seeped so far down that Faerie itself had claimed them.

Tonight they trod on mortal ground, a desert of fine sand and chill night airs, stars waltzing above and bonfires undulating on the crests of dunes, illuminating the scene.

And they danced, alone. No others touched them, or even drew near, not even during dances where the shifting sands themselves seemed to come alive, jumping and swirling, kicked u by fast moving feet.

They didn’t mind, mostly. It was best if they stayed apart from the court. They were trying to downplay the rumours that the King’s ascent had been thanks to a Shadowhunter coup, which was doubly hard when they held a dram of truth.

In fairness, it had been a mostly accidental coup.

The Unseelie Court was skittish, their first regime change in millennia making even stalwart courtiers shy. The Shadowhunters in their midst kept to themselves, tried to blend in. They found quiet places, made themselves likable and non threatening in the faerie way.

They danced. Mark had experience and in their bubble of solitude he spun Cristina close, until flowers bruised from riotous motion and petals hit the ground. No thorns, he noted. Sometimes there were thorns and by the end of the night he and Cristina would be bleeding from a hundred shallow cuts and Kieran would be wroth.

The motions of revel dances were quick, circles forming and dissolving, skipping steps, tracing fractal patterns on the ground. But cut off from the rest Mark and Cristina were forced to improvise, hand to hand to hand to hand, spinning round till they grew dizzy, running this way and that, childlike, as drunk on the spirit of the courts in full swing as anyone else.

The Seelie had joined them, no Queen but laughing pixies and more flowers to match Cristina’s, and then the wild fey who seemed more at ease among primeval trees than treacherous deserts but stayed all the same. Personally, Mark liked the venue of the evening. It suited his people.

Jaime Rosales laughed among some Unseelie Knights, a group of shadows in the shadow of the dunes, and Emma and Julian had matched the starlight before they wandered off at some point, perhaps minutes before, perhaps hours. If Helen and Aline had attended they would have been as stunning as the rising moon and the crushed velvet sky, the most perfect amid wild untamed perfection. He knew his sister, named most beautiful at birth, could outshine any of the Seelie belles.

Mark and Cristina still danced alone, until her flowers were in shreds and his heavy tunic seemed to weigh him down, and they fell to the ground.

Someone had left a pearly glass pitcher of something nearby and Mark lazily leaned over to fetch it, even as Cristina painstakingly buried her bare feet in the sand.

He couldn’t remember if she’d had shoes at the start of the night. He couldn’t remember if he had shoes right now.

The pitcher was full of something clear, which seemed to be stubbornly reflecting the moon above him, even when he hid it under his shirt.

Cristina looked over and laughed. “Moonshine!” she said with a certain clever elation, like Livvy when she made a math joke.

Mark felt his lips peel back from his teeth, delight at her delight. If there was one thing that was infectious at a faerie party, it was giddiness. Whether malevolent or mischievous or innocent as a daisy, there was always glee. No one wanted to be staid or sober at the end of the night and so they all partook in one another’s joy.

He raised the pitcher to his lips and tried a sip. It tasted like clear mountain water, which by fey rules probably meant it had an alcoholic content fit to intoxicate a small elephant.

Instantly the hill fires looked brighter and he felt ready for more, more what he did not know. More anything, perhaps.

When he tried to pull Cristina to her feet she demurred, and rejected the proffered pitcher of the recently dubbed moonshine.

“I know my own limits, Mark.” she laughed, even her dismissals sweetened by the night air. “Go, enjoy yourself.”

At some revels normal humans would find themselves dancing until they died, their bodies left in the morning dew like humans left garbage in the woods. Cristina was protected, of course, but she also had exceptional strength. Enough for Mark to feel confident tucking the pitcher against her side and leaving her there, her wind tossed hair scattered with rose petals. Faeries stared unabashedly at her from inside of what Emma still insisted on calling “the mosh pit”.

He knew she was much admired, even as he was. They were young, decked with signs of high merit, and prone to bleeding angel blood on the dance floor, which were all things faeries took joy in themselves.

For all his admirers, Mark moved still alone, circles of whirling fey disappearing before him. The wind was in his hair and the weight of his clothes was lessened by his newfound moonlight high. Laughter pierced the air and kisses were traded as easily as poison and weapons were few and far between, because no one needed something as crude and bone or stone or steel when everything was light and shadows.

This was the very best kind of gathering, where the courts sat in balance and almost everyone attended, bending the world around them, making the air feel syrup thick with magic. Mark laughed, at the sand beneath his feet and the stars above and the wide open space around him, at the way the party was spreading, the way the fires raged and the people moved.

If he was younger he would have had Kieran by his side and then no suspicious whispers or coy stares could have brought him down. If Cristina was with him, he could delight in her company and ignore all else. What was a semi hostile crowd when you had a world by your side?

But alone the light was jarring, the fragrances of night and dust stale. Even with boundaries tumbling down and faeries pressing closer and closer around him he felt strangely morose, enough to even consider gate crashing Jaime’s clique or tracking down Julian and Emma to interfere with whatever they were doing- knowing them, probably something inappropriate involving far too much sand and far too little clothes and flagrant abuse of their parabatai bond.

He spotted a few Hunters he could name, and knew Gwyn could not be far, and that bolstered his spirits. The leader of the first and last hunt was not easily intimidated, not even by the invisible Keep Off signs that were metaphorically and politically taped to Mark and Cristina’s backs.

On the way to hunt down a hunter Kieran’s oldest sister - Fedelm, warrior and prophetess- grabbed Mark’s wrists to spin him a few turns. Her cloak of white ribbons flared out behind her. One of Kieran’s remaining brothers, Tamal, mouthed a greeting, but his words were lost in the revving chaos. Mark moved on.

He found Gwyn with the King, and a few others. Kieran sat on a chair of simple wood, away and above the glorious disaster of the revelry, and the familiar fall of his indigo hair shadowed his face. His arm was draped around an Unseelie man, young and beautiful and gentry, and suddenly Gwyn wasn’t who Mark was looking for anymore.

Mark wasn’t jealous, he knew the importance of seeming involved in the court, but he was somewhat gratified when Kieran immediately dismissed the gentry man to pull at Mark’s sleeve. The weave of gold was blinding under torches, as it was meant to be. Mark himself felt a little nauseous staring at it.

Kieran was looking up at him, one eye silver the other a dark pit, nothing but blackness where his father had gouged out his eye to free him from the Hunt. The last desperate act of a dying immortal with a succession to establish. It had worked. Kieran had ended up King, at least for the time being.

Kieran looked vulnerable as he looked up at Mark from his seat, a boy, not a ruler. All the beauty and pride Mark had known was now touched with uncertainty.

“Mark? Is something amiss?”

Mark thought of Cristina alone in the sand, susceptible to the siren song of the faeries and trying so hard to resist it she would push Mark away. He thought of Kieran on his unstable throne, and Jules and Emma wandering off into the desert, magic sick on their own parabatai bond in a way no one could stop. All of them in a strange and dangerous world. He thought of those he loved somehow, miraculously alive and with him, of Ty and Livvy ensconced in their library, and Helen and Aline in their room, fixing things, maybe, finding a solution. The children were in their beds and come dawn he could go and rest as well.

No life was perfect.

He stared at his prince, his King, his Kieran, and let the spirit of the night bring him back a smile, delight to elicit delight. He touched the back of Kieran’s warm hand, reassuring both of them.

“All is well.”


	4. Outside Perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/143288246279/black-rose-week-day-four-outside-perspective)

Working with the Council was a prestigious post. It was also, on occasion, like observing a roomful of temperamental toddlers locked together with only one juice box. Avigail didn’t think she could make it on the Council, where lately everyone seemed to be arguing with everyone else, or, Angel forbid, as Consul.

There was a reason Jia Penhallow had retired with premature grey hairs.

Luckily Avigail’s job was just to take minutes for the Silent Brothers to whisk away and archive the second after the meeting. It was a taxing position, especially for someone new to the post, since some things were plain hard to summarize.

For example, Cristina Rosales from the Institute in Los Angeles seemed to be trying to climb over the table to shout at the Unseelie Representative, a dark haired youth Avigail simply marked down as UnPrince because if she didn’t use shorthand nothing would be done.

The prince in question could usually be seen leaning back in his seat making disruptive comments too quietly for Avigail to actually hear them. But today he was oddly engaged, half standing to shout right back.

Apparently people had strong feelings about the Accords, despite the next signing being almost five years away.

Other people were yelling as well, but Rosales and the Unseelie Prince were the epicenter of the ill tempered political debate, like the eye of a hurricane but less calm and more likely to start a knife fight.

No wonder they’d started making Council meetings private.

Rosales was getting red in the face and the tips of the Unseelie Prince’s hair were turning an unhealthy blue grey. The Consul looked like he wanted to climb under the table or pick everyone up by their shirt fronts and shake them.

Finally the vampire representative, a pretty Asian woman who kept looking sidelong at Avigail and grinning during boring speeches, whistled. It sounded like the shriek of a dying demon and went on for seven long seconds.

In the aftermath all was quiet except the scritching of Avigail’s pen as she tried to catch up on the last ten minutes of overlapping indecipherable malcontent. Even with speed and translation runes she was always a few steps behind.

The Consul took a deep breath.

“Now, back to the matter at hand?”

For the rest of the meeting the prince and Miss Rosales continued glaring at each other. Their arguments were more civil but still brutal. Neither side seemed prepared to give at all, until they reached a miracle compromise just a few seconds before the Consul gave in and called the meeting and possibly the whole Accords off.

Avigail was by no means the most thankful person in the room, but she was close. Her hand had moved well past cramping and might have been in its death throes.

The Silent Brothers could not sit on Council meetings due to Downworlder objections about mind reading and secret communication, so Avigail had to wait a few minutes to hand off the meeting transcription, time she took to summarize and wrap up get notes.

In the meantime Shadowhunters and Downworlders alike streamed out as if fleeing from a burning building, some in pairs, and some alone. Cristina Rosales and Prince Kieran were the last to leave. The others gave them a wide berth. Avigail shrunk back into an alcove, not wanting to be complicit in an argument.

To her surprise the Prince reached over and tucked a curl-errant behind Cristina Rosales’ ear, and Rosales’ hand settled at his waist.

“Sorry about that.” Cristina said, gesturing to the open door of the Council chamber; that wide and lofty space.

“We must both do our duty to our people.” the Prince said agreeably. “Even when it means quarreling. I am simply glad you eventually saw sense and abandoned your foolhardy position.”

Mock offense wrinkled up Cristina Rosales’ nose. “I saw sense? I thought it was you who was brought around to my side, after much struggle.”

Prince Kieran waved a hand. “Perhaps we must agree that it was a brilliant treaty negotiated by all who came to the table of peace with pure hearts.”

“Knowing your heart I’m willing to concede to that.” Cristina said, with only a hint of a flush.

Avigail was baffled. She’d never heard a thing about this before, but the middle of the Gard wasn’t a place for a subtle assignation. And while she’d seen no hint of affection between the two, she’d only been to a handful of meetings, and before that she hadn’t been one for Shadowhunter gossip. Her aunt at the Ankara Institute had frowned on it.

Prince Kieran took a half step back. “Those are words to wound, Cristina Rosales. I might find myself offended.” He had a pretty smile to match a pretty face, even if the former was a little wicked.

Cristina closed the distance between them. “You might, but I don’t think you will.” She reached up and bopped his nose, eliciting a small sound of distaste from the prince. “I should go. I promised to have lunch with some of our favorite moderates before they Portal home. See if we can win any support.”

“I trust you in this, as most things.” Prince Kieran said, reaching for her hand. “But if you are there, who will walk me through the streets of this twice cursed city?”

Avigail saw a Silent Brother approaching down the hall. Brother Benjamin had a boring name and a meek manner, even for a Silent Brother. Avigail usually liked him.

“Only twice cursed? Last week it was thrice, which I still believe is a word you made up.”

The Silent Brother surveyed the scene they quietly backed away.

Prince Kieran glowered. “Irrelevant. I am no spineless worm, but it was you who told me I should probably have an escort here.”

Cristina reached up and touched his face lightly. “I know. I asked Mark to come here, in case my schedule left no time for you.”

The prince lifted her hand and kissed her wrist. “Mark will do.” he decided.

“You are always so generous.” Rosales quipped. “I will see you later.”

After a bow and another kiss, this time to the back of her hand, Cristina Rosales left. In her absence the prince started looking around and Avigail shrank farther back, not wanting to be spotted now that she had already done some significant eavesdropping.

Brother Benjamin, her potential savior, did not appear, but someone else did. Ruffled hair, curling close to his scalp, half pointed ears, rune marked skin, and dissonant eyes. Avigail was a bit oblivious, but even she knew Mark Blackthorn, who had been thrown to the wolves and had come back anyways, after which mysterious things had happened leading to the end of the Cold Peace.

Come to think of it, she thought Cristina Rosales might have been involved as well.

At Blackthorn’s approach Prince Kieran stopped looking around with suspicious eyes and embraced Mark warmly, only to start whispering in his ear. Avigail fumbled for her stele to draw a rune for hearing but the moment was over as soon as it had begun, with a nod and a smile from both parties.

Then Prince Kieran pushed Mark Blackthorn against the wall next to the Council chamber doors and kissed him.

It was short and not particularly scandalous other than the wall shoving but something about the way they settled into each other suggested a well worn pattern, like it was a path that had been trodden many times, passion and familiarity intertwined.

“That boring?” Mark asked.

“Not really. Cristina and I got to bellow at one another.” Prince Kieran replied. “But I missed you.”

Mark shook his head. “You know I do not understand why you two do that. Everyone is confused enough as it is. I missed you too.”

Kieran ran a thumb along a galaxy of sun gold freckles across Mark’s nose. “This is why you are not good at wandering the halls of power. Cristina and I should not be compromised by our ties to each other, and so we must tell.”

Mark muttered something that made the Prince roll his eyes fondly and Avigail wished she’d taken the time for a hearing rune earlier.

They started to walk off, and as they left Mark leaned in close, said something softly. Kieran looked around and then pointed, precise as a faerie arrow, at the alcove where Avigail was half shrouded in shadow.

Mark Blackthorn looked her direction and winked, before leaving, the Unseelie Prince close at his heels.

For lack of a better option and despite the fact that he had already turned away, Avigail gathered her papers- that Brother Benjamin would hopefully reappear to collect- to her chest and winked back.

She really needed to catch up on the gossip.


	5. Love Among Hunters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/143317528641/black-rose-week-day-five-a-hundred-years-and)

-

A hundred years and then some.

Or maybe a month.

The Wild Hunt did not put much stock in time. They could ride for ages and discover later it had been barely an hour, or settle down for a nap and snore away a century. At least in theory they could, in practice Cristina found the scales tended to tip towards eternity.

 

-

She watched the earth below them, the sprawling cities like spiderwebs of light, and tried to estimate how long it had been. Was everyone she had known, everyone Mark had known, dead?

They traded stories under covers and in secret corners, passed messages through Kieran. Gwyn was careful not to leave them alone too much. Hunters got some freedom but even he had his limits when it came to Shadowhunters in this political climate.

 

-

 

Kieran told her incessantly how lucky she was that he and Mark and the Hunt had found her first, a Shadowhunter lost in Faerieland, her companions disappeared. A young girl sent on a simple mission from the D.F Institute and lost beyond reason in uncanny woods.

“And you so fair and full of flesh,” he would say, “who knows what might have happened?”

It took Cristina a while to realize he wasn’t intentionally holding it over her, he was just terrible at being polite, and he didn’t want her to try anything that might put Mark in danger. After that his concern was almost sweet.

 

-

 

She was grateful. She knew both courts had retreated to their strongholds and would kill any Shadowhunters who approached them. She knew Mark and Kieran had put themselves in quite a bit of danger, campaigning on her behalf when all they knew was that she was a Shadowhunter and that she had offered to help Mark in those short moments when they had first met in the wilds of Faerie, before Kieran had dropped from a tree onto her back.

“Mortals have been in the Hunt before. As have women. There is precedent. She will swear loyalty, if you let her.”

Cristina hadn’t known what she was ready to swear, not until Gwyn ap Nudd looked at her questioningly, eyes like warlock fire, and she looked at the strange, lost, beautiful boy and his grudging back up who were quite possibly putting their lives on the line for her.

Gwyn’s blood had burned like acid in her throat. She had no faerie heritage. She was not young, tortured, and lied to as the famous Mark Blackthorn had been. This was a betrayal of every principle she had been raised on.

It was the only way she could think of to live, and possibly pay back the kindness she had been shown.

She didn’t scream.

 

-

 

Kieran said, in one of his rare moments of unprompted generosity, that her eyes were beautiful. Dark, rich brown and a pale yellow, like sandstone. Cristina imagined her mother’s prize roses and found a place to silently cry.

 

-

 

“Teach my fingers to fight and my hands to war.” Cristina was already a fighter. She did not need war now. What she wanted from Raziel was forgiveness. But her angel had a plan for everyone and Cristina just had to trust that this was his for her.

 

-

 

“I am a Shadowhunter.” Mark whispered, barely more than a breath, in the very darkest hours of sleep.

Cristina echoed it back until they were a loop of reassurance and empty promises. Curled between them, Kieran tolerated it.

Kieran tolerated a lot of things. At first Cristina thought it was just for Mark, Mark who played with her hair and begged endless stories, everything and anything Cristina could remember of his family, the famed Blackthorns, and then when that ran out anything she could remember about hers. But the other Hunters stood so distant from them, and eventually Cristina thought he might have wanted someone else around.

 

-

 

The Hunt could be beautiful. They saw every corner of the earth and sky and even Faerieland itself held few mysteries for them.

She wore simple clothes, kept her medallion close and tucked away, said her prayers as she always had, and did her very best. Mark had stories about how hard life could be for new Hunters and a half a hundred rules for avoiding conflict and not getting in trouble.

So she stayed close to Gwyn for the first few days, kept quiet and did not falter despite the pain and fatigue.

When she was deemed faithful enough she transferred herself to Mark and Kieran’s group. Sleeping next to them, and then with them after an attempted ambush gone wrong for everyone.

It meant ignoring furious make outs right next to her, which was difficult but not impossible.

It meant riding beside them through hill and dale and storm, on a spirit of the air made flesh. That was easy. Riding, the gloriousness of it, even the thrill of the chase appealed to her.

The bloody parts were the worst. Cristina knew blood, she wasn’t afraid of it, but the work of a Hunter was antithetical to what Shadowhunters were supposed to do. Mark was beside her though, urging her on, and Kieran was a like protective charm. The three of them could be untouchable, as long as they stayed close.

She wondered what they had both been through, that they sheltered her so furiously. She was not raised to be a burden and she did her best to pay them back. She was fast, learned well, already knew the ways of the fey. She abhorred conflict and betrayal, and so stayed stalwart, even when chances to escape seemed to present themselves. She could not lie and make nice with those Hunters she hated, but she made overtures of friendship to the nicer ones which was more than Mark or Kieran would do.

The language had come quickly to her, she was good at languages. She had already known their customs from years of study, even if it was different to see them in action.

A hundred years, a month, forever and a day, she wasn’t sure how much time had passed for the family she had left behind in Mexico, or for Mark’s family in the United States.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed but she knew when Gwyn laid a gentle hand on her shoulder that Cristina Rosales had somehow become a good hunter.

 

-

 

She had already been with them for a time, but as a guest. A strange, possibly untrustworthy guest.

But Kieran slowly warmed to her and Mark had always been joyously flirtatious and as she settled into the rhythm of the world it was more than mere Shadowhunter duty and shared circumstances that bound them. They were all Hunters, under Gwyn’s tutelage and command.

Kieran’s blanket was always warm but it wasn’t quite big enough for three unless they kept close. There were sweet nothings being whispered next to her, and the sound of rising heartbeats and the soft brush of skin on skin.

She shimmied away to give them privacy. The outside was cold but it was preferable to rudeness, or worse, the head spinning understanding of exactly what the beautiful boys next to her were doing.

“Cristina?” came the whisper in the darkness. “Are you awake?”

She nodded, though she knew they could not see her. “Yes. But do not feel compelled to stop for me.”

There was a hitched breath, and a cold hand laid on her cheek, hesitant.

“You will freeze unless you move closer.” said another voice, Kieran this time. “And that will be a terrible waste of effort.”

Cristina raised an eyebrow. “I do not want to, erm, interrupt.” She could feel herself blushing again, still ridiculously awkward even after Angel knew how long.

Kieran moved in the darkness. She thought he was trying to communicate a dismissal of her concerns, but it was hard to tell.

“Then don’t interrupt,” Mark said. “You can join us, if you like.”

They were not as flexible as some of the others among the Hunt. Kieran would not let anyone but Mark and Gwyn even touch him, not that she had seen. Except, he had let Cristina help him up the day before, had lain next to her. The more she thought about it the more she realized that it was a generous offer, but not a bizarre one. Technically they’d been sleeping together for at least a month.

Cristina thought her eighteenth birthday must have passed. She was an adult, and she was a Hunter full, for better or for worse. She gripped her medallion tight, considered it, and made up her mind.

She moved closer under the blankets.

-


	6. Guardian Approval

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to (http://marcythewerewolf.tumblr.com/post/143382541059/black-rose-week-day-six-uncle-arthurs)

Uncle Arthur’s presence in the kitchen might have been promising under literally any under circumstances.

Under the current circumstances Mark had to try to throw Kieran into the pantry.

He failed.

Uncle Arthur’s tired eyes zeroed in on the movement, and on Kieran, resolutely clinging to the kitchen counter.

“You are one of the Shining People.” Arthur said, blinking. His glasses were askew and his greying hair looked like it was trying to migrate to one side of his head, possibly the inside.

Kieran inclined his head politely. He looked startled, but also interested. Damn faerie curiosity.

Uncle Arthur blinked again. He was beginning to look like an owl. “You are of the Wild Hunt?” Arthur tried, less sure of himself. Mark desperately tried to think of what to do, but all his plans involved physically removing his uncle from the room and according to Julian it was better not to confront him. Cristina wasn’t much help, she was still uncomfortable around Arthur and was looking anxiously at Mark, as if he was supposed to sort it all out just because it was his mad uncle.

“I am.” Kieran agreed, giving Mark a sidelong glance. His elbow was resting in the counter, his legs were crossed over each other and Mark knew that despite all appearances Kieran was ready to move at any second. Not that he would, at least until his curiosity was sated.

Arthur’s eyes cleared and he suddenly looked much more sure of himself. “You were one of the ones who tried to use my nephew to bring my family to destruction. As if we needed help.” Arthur added as an afterthought before turning to said nephew, “Mark what is he doing here?”

“It was not my plan, to hurt Mark or your clan!” Kieran protested, sounding genuinely offended.

Mark tried to gesture Cristina to the kitchen door, and thankfully she got the hint and closed it. They didn’t want to wake up anyone else. He stepped in between Kieran and Uncle Arthur, hands up in front of his chest.

“Uncle, Kieran helped us a lot with Malcolm. I asked him to do a favour for me and he did it, so I invited him in for a bite to eat before he left.”

“Over our threshold.” Arthur muttered, staring at a point just above Mark’s head.

Mark looked to Cristina, leaning against the heavy wood door, for help but she looked as baffled as he was and was clinging to the disk of gold around her neck like a life line. Kieran was still taking the stance of a comfortable observer, which meant he’d be of no use.

Something Julian had mentioned during his official ‘group debriefing on the state of Arthur’ with Cristina and the twins struck Mark.

“Uncle.” He said carefully, “Did you come down here for something to eat?”

Arthur didn’t eat much, Julian had said. But occasionally he would slip down stairs and take a tin of biscuits or make a sandwich. The knives were locked away, from Tavvy as well as Arthur, so it was perfectly fine and not usually to be worried about. At least it meant their legal guardian was getting some more nutrition than what Jules, and more recently Livvy, could coax down his throat. Food was something Mark could provide and it might distract his Uncle from the faery lounging in the kitchen.

“I did,” Arthur admitted, “But really Mark Anthony, you must be more careful. The Angel knows Andrew doesn’t have much room to criticize, but he’ll be very cross about you bringing your friends home at all hours of the night.”

Kieran had apparently moved from kidnapper to friend, but that didn’t stop Arthur from giving him a suspicious glare over Mark’s shoulder.

“I was aiding Mark, as I was asked to.” Kieran defended himself, and Mark tried not to imagine his former-ish lover getting into an extended argument with Arthur. That couldn’t end well.

“Do you love him?” Uncle Arthur demanded. Panic built in Mark’s stomach. Kieran was unfazed.

“I promised to never stop. But we are not lovers at this point, if that is what worries you, Arthur Blackthorn.” Kieran said, barely a hitch to his voice or a tightness in his tone.

“Uncle, please. Sit down. Eat.” Mark said, placating. He knew his uncle could be easily distracted at times, and he desperately hoped in the morning this would all seem like a dream to him, something he would not remember.

The table was covered with the remnants of his, Cristina’s, and Kieran’s midnight snack. Mark had steered away from anything complicated for Julian’s sake, but they had still gotten into several bags of candy and the bagels. Kieran had decimated a can of mixed fruit.

Mark steered Uncle Arthur into a chair and handed him a bagel, which Arthur regarded with distrust.

“Mark.” he said seriously, almost sounding like Dad had during his most parental speeches, “We need to discuss this.”

“Eat, Uncle.” Mark encouraged, resting his chin on his hands.

“Please, Mr. Blackthorn.” Cristina agreed, moving to sit at the table as well. She was still fidgeting, as if Arthur unnerved her, but Mark appreciated her support.

But Uncle Arthur would not be discouraged or distracted. He put down the bagel and adjusted his glasses. “You said the faery did you a favour? Those do not come lightly.”

Mark gritted his teeth. “Kieran did, yes. He brought a present to Helen. And I know how the Fair Folk live Uncle, I lived among them myself.”

“I know you did.” Arthur said sadly. “Just as I know I did.”

Mark froze. Arthur had spoken to him a few times over the past weeks, to tell him he was glad he was back, or that he looked like his father, or that he was sorry he hadn’t saved Helen. But he had never spoken of Faerie or his time there before and the stories Mark had heard had while among the Wild Hunt had been vague at best.

“My mother, you mean?” Mark asked. He knew his mother had been Lady Nerissa, who a Shadowhunter had fallen so in love with he had stayed in Faerie, and his brother had stayed with him. Then the Shadowhunter had hurt her and she had died.

“I should think he is referring to your lady aunt.” Kieran said.

“You’re well informed, young Hunter.” Uncle Arthur said with a bitter smile.

Kieran tilted his head back and forth, a so so. “I grew up in the Unseelie court. But I do not know everything.”

Mark found himself even more confused than before. “I have an aunt?”

Arthur nodded vaguely and poked at his bagel. “Unless she’s died in the interim, has she?” He was looking at Kieran.

“I believe she retired into seclusion after her sister’s death?” Kieran said.

“Really?” Cristina said. ‘Is that common?”

“That’s a shame.” Arthur said. “I could have sworn she was dead.”

Mark tried to focus on the pertinent information as opposed to Cristina’s constant curiosity or Uncle Arthur’s solemn dismay that his sister in law was still alive, “Kieran, why did you never tell me I had an aunt?” An aunt, in faerie, alive and well. A family member who could have laid claim to him as a child of her blood, but clearly had no interest in doing so. He and Helen had been sent to their father, after all, their father who never told them of an aunt, who spoke of their mother only when prompted and only to say kind and meaningless things.

Kieran didn’t look troubled, but then again Kieran’s family was more complicated than anyone could deal with. A secret aunt probably didn’t seem out of the ordinary to him. “I assumed that you knew.” he replied, and he sounded almost worried. “Was I wrong to think that? I did not mean to conceal anything from you, I swear it.”

Mark felt like he was dreaming again. Everything had been safe and solid, but now he couldn’t shake the sense that he was drugged and hallucinating, that any second Uncle Arthur would pile some new torment on. His head hit the table top, barely cushioned by his folded arms. He needed a second to think. Cristina put her hand lightly on his shoulder.

“Mark?” said someone in Uncle Arthur’s mild, slightly befuddled voice. “Are you all right?” It was almost funny, Mark thought, that Uncle Arthur felt like the most relatable person at the moment. Both of them had dreamed dreams until sometimes dream was difficult to differentiate between reality. Of course for Arthur it was a default state, while Mark’s attacks were short, rare, and usually brought on by something. Still, they were more alike than Arthur probably realized.

“I’m fine.” Mark said loudly so he could be heard outside of his temporary sanctuary of wood and arms. “I just need some time.”

Slowly but surely Mark pulled himself back together, piled up and assessed facts, and came to the conclusion that everything was real. Bizarre, but real. He lifted his head, and was met by three concerned faces.

“What did you wish to say, Uncle Arthur?” he asked.

The kitchen seemed like a strange place to be having a conversation with his madness stricken uncle, his fey ex, and Cristina. The darkness outside was complete, which made gave everything an unreal edge, even all the familiarness of his family kitchen.

Uncle Arthur was silent when put on the spot. After some thought he said, “What do you want to know?”

“My mother.”

“Oh, she was lovely.” Arthur said, absent minded. “Probably perfectly capable of being unlovely but she was always kind to me, if only because she and Andrew were wrapped around each other every hour of the day.”

He paused. “Your aunt Eirene once tied me down and poisoned me and then threatened to have me eaten alive by moths..” He shuddered, as if remembering it, and Mark was worried he would take poorly in the screaming and blood sort of way but then the moment passed and he took a bite of his bagel. The three teenagers watched him in fascination and to some extent worry.

Uncle Arthur was a well raised Shadowhunter so he chewed and swallowed before continuing talking. “As Plutarch said, a lover’s soul lives in the body of his mistress. Love is a dangerous thing for faeries and men, Mark. It brought death to the man you were named after.”

“I know.” It had been a popular story during Mark’s later childhood. Livvy had loved Queen Cleopatra.

Uncle Arthur nodded. “Good. In that case, please don’t make any promises you can’t keep, get us in trouble with the Clave or do anything regrettable with your friend of the Hunt and I will be satisfied.” Something in his face shifted. “I do not know why you would choose one of the people who kept you away from your family to love, but I also know you are your father’s son and Andrew always gets himself into the most ridiculous of situations.”

Mark opened his mouth to protest that he did not love Kieran- because they were talking but things were still convoluted and there was blood owed between them- but he could not do it. Perhaps he wasn’t that good at lying after all. “Thank you for your blessing, Uncle.” he said through the dryness of his mouth. He was suddenly very thankful for Cristina’s hand still resting on his shoulder and he reached up to touch it.

Arthur looked over at Cristina, as if only just registering her presence.

“Aren’t you the Rosales girl?”

“Cristina Rosales.” Cristina corrected. “I’ve been living here for almost three months.”

“You’re mother sent a very long letter.” Arthur said frowning. “I can’t remember what it was about. I think one of the children sent a letter back. Probably with my signature. I suspect I promised to take care of you.”

“You probably did,” Cristina agreed. “But I am a full member of the Clave, and I can make my own choices. As you said, love is dangerous but it is also all we have, isn’t it?” She seemed so confident, talking about love. Mark did not even want to think the word in conjunction with the three of them, not yet.

“So they say.” Arthur sighed, staring at his bagel. “”Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods.” In my experience all love ends in betrayal, but I do not seek to limit you since it would only be unsuccessful. Just don’t get eaten by moths.”

He was a conundrum, Uncle Arthur. Julian had said his swings were getting more extreme and unpredictable, bouncing between extreme delusion and catatonia with periods of clarity in between. Mark couldn’t actually tell if he was mad or not at the moment. Perhaps that was part of the point, even if he couldn’t tell what the point was.

Cristina smiled, disconcerted but looking amused despite it. “I’ll try.”

“Venus is a cruel mistress.” Arthur informed his bagel. “It took my brother. Doubtless it will take you three as well, one way or another. But I hope it will not. Just remember, for all you love Eros there is always family. Always.”

Mark thought of the aunt he apparently had in Faerie, who must have heard of him but had not stirred a hand to help her sister’s son, who had hurt Uncle Arthur, perhaps molding him into what he was. “Always.” he agreed.

“I should go back to my room.” Arthur said, standing up shakily.

“Take your bagel.” Mark said. With any luck Uncle Arthur would eat it.

He wanted to ask after his mother more, beg for any fact or story, ask if she was really so lovely and kind and clever, if his father really shattered her heart, but he didn’t want to press Arthur. And some part of him was worried about the answers he’d get. He could handle a brand new aunt, but that was about it.

The bagel was placed in a bathrobe pocket with great care, and Uncle Arthur shuffled to the door.

“Please do not tell anyone about this.” said Cristina, who was hovering nearby as if worried Arthur would fall, which admittedly was a danger since he was without his cane. “The Clave would frown on us talking to Kieran, though we aren’t doing any harm.”

“Yes, yes.” Uncle Arthur agreed. “Yes, they would. Can’t give them another excuse to exile an innocent child, can we?” He looked back at Mark. “I hope it goes well for you. The fey can be as kind as they can be hateful.”

“So can I.” Mark said, touching the tip of one ear self consciously. Arthur shook his head.

“No, your sister is Nerissa’s in her love and her duty. But underneath what they have made you there has never been a soul more like Andrew’s. I can only hope he forgives me for this.”

With that statement of questionable veracity Arthur walked out.

Kieran popped an M&M in his mouth. “Your uncle is quite enjoyable company, if somewhat addled in his wits. You are lucky to have him.”

Lucky was not a word Mark would have used, but neither was unlucky. Uncle Arthur was a fact of life now, as much as anything else. He was, and the rest of the Blackthorns had grown around him and now he was a as undeniable as a mountain. A quiet mountain that lived in the attic.

Mark closed his eyes. “Kieran, not to be churlish for I do not blame you, but do I have any other hidden kinsmen you haven’t told me about?

“No, I thi-”

“Shhh!” Cristina snapped, gesturing sharply.

There was a scuffling of feet in the hall and a tetchy young voice. “I just came to get some water so if any weird Shadowhunter stuff is happening in there, please stop.”

Kit Rook, the Institute’s newest and most troubled inhabitant. Mark hadn’t even been allowed to hold the title for a month.

Mark threw Kieran into the pantry again. This time he succeeded.


End file.
